Portland, Ore. — January 13, 2016 – Three Oregon institutions are collaborating to develop and test a package of resources that will guide pharmacists using the state’s Prescription Drug Monitoring Program (PDMP), with the ultimate goal of reducing prescription opioid-related harms. Acumentra Health, a nonprofit health care consulting firm, is working with Oregon State University (OSU) researchers and Fred Meyer Pharmacy on this innovative project, funded by the federal Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality.
Overdoses and deaths from prescription opioids are in the forefront of public health concerns in Oregon. According to the Oregon Health Authority, drug overdoses have surpassed motor vehicle crashes as a cause of injury death in Oregon, and 53% of drug overdoses in Oregon are associated with prescription opioids. In 2013, the federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration reported that Oregon had the highest rate of prescription pain medication abuse in the nation.
State-based PDMPs are a centerpiece of efforts to combat prescription opioid overdoses and deaths. Health care providers and pharmacists in 49 states can use these statewide databases to better manage patient prescriptions and ensure the appropriate use of prescription drugs. However, PDMPs have not yet fulfilled their potential as a clinical tool and are still widely underutilized.
The Oregon research team, led by Principal Investigator Daniel Hartung, PharmD, MPH, of OSU, will develop and test a PDMP toolkit for use by pharmacists as part of their routine workflow. The toolkit is expected to help pharmacists identify patients at risk for harm by prescription opioids; communicate with patients about concerns at the point of care; and coordinate with the patient’s primary prescriber to ensure safer use of these medications.
To help evaluate the toolkit’s effectiveness, Fred Meyer Pharmacy will pilot test the toolkit in six pharmacies in Oregon, yet to be determined. Acumentra Health manages the project on behalf of the research partners.
“Historically, community pharmacists have had few clinical resources to monitor prescribing beyond their own pharmacy dispensing systems,” Dr. Hartung noted. “The PDMP can be a valuable tool to help pharmacists screen for potentially hazardous opioid prescribing. However, most practicing pharmacists receive little formal training in preventing and treating substance abuse, and little guidance on how to identify and respond to these patients and scenarios. Our toolkit will help pharmacists better integrate PDMP information into their practice and use it effectively to identify risky prescription patterns before dispensing a prescription.”
Results of the toolkit evaluation by the Fred Meyer pilot sites will be immediately applicable to other Fred Meyer pharmacies, and should be translatable to similar pharmacies. This should set the stage for a larger study to evaluate the toolkit in a wide variety of pharmacy and PDMP settings.
Dr. Hartung is associate professor of pharmacy practice at the OSU College of Pharmacy and an investigator in the Pacific Northwest Evidence-based Practice Center at Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU). He brings to this project more than 10 years of experience in prescription policy and pharmaceutical health service research. Nicole O’Kane, PharmD, Acumentra Health’s clinical director, is the
co-investigator for the project.
Fred Meyer Pharmacy operates pharmacies in 51 urban and rural communities across Oregon. OSU and Fred Meyer collaborated to establish a joint community pharmacy residency program.
Since 2012, Acumentra Health has conducted federally funded research on the effectiveness of Oregon’s PDMP as a clinical decision tool for providers, in partnership with investigators at OHSU.
